Got a G4 Mac with 2.0GB RAM? Or perhaps a bit less, or even a bit
more? Yet you booted into Mac OS 9.2.2 or earlier, and noticed that,
no matter what, you only ever have at most 1.5 GB RAM available for
your apps, but the system "absorbed" all of the rest?
Welcome to the 1.5 GB limit of RAM allocation in Mac OS! And welcome
to a solution to retrieve back 128 MB of RAM for a total of 1.628 GB!
The downloads in this page are the result of the valiant efforts of
the fine gentlemen over at the [Mac OS 9 Lives!][1] forums, in
particular members "nanopico", "ELN" and others. Despite being an
achievement from all the way back in 2017, the news clearly haven't
travelled far and wide enough, and it remained as a buried secret, so
here's a lot more exposure and access to it.
The solution is contained within a single, simple Mac OS ROM file,
much like that which allowed booting Mac OS natively in the Mac mini
G4 and other PowerPC devices. The downloads also include a few other
tools, but for regular end-user use, they can be ignored. More context
is provided in the main discussion thread:
<
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2860.0>
Download #1 contains the third and currently latest attempt at
breaking the 1.5 GB barrier. It seems to work the best so far, and
allows an additional 128MB of RAM to be retrieved and used completely
normally and stably. This is the only download you will normally want.
Download #2 is kept here for historical purposes, and for reference.
It contains the second attempt at breaking the barrier. It might also
allow an additional 128MB of RAM to be retrieved back, but this
attempt simply did not work for most users who tested it and provided
feedback, hence why there was a third (and successful) attempt.
Download #3 is also kept here for historical purposes, and for
reference. It contains the first attempt at breaking the barrier. It
allows an additional 64MB of RAM to be retrieved back and used.
Compatibility
Architecture: PPC
Mac OS 9.
[1]:
http://macos9lives.com/
